


Yesterday's Truth

by enmity



Category: Persona 2, Persona Series
Genre: Bad Ending, Eternal Punishment, F/M, Post-Canon, no emotional payoff sorry.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 10:09:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14103084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmity/pseuds/enmity
Summary: He’s made his choice; it’s only fair that she gets to make hers.





	Yesterday's Truth

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not kidding w/ the "bad ending" tag anyway n-buna released a new song?!?!

The clock tower is quiet and deserted and the door is already unlocked when she turns the handle. Lisa spends a good few seconds taken aback, her fingers stilling around the curved metal, because she knows she shouldn’t be so startled, really; the old janitor forgets to lock up, and it’s not as if the worst things that might’ve happened here don’t amount to a few ill-advised dares by the first-years or a handful of delinquents whiling away their hours here when they’re supposed to be in class, illicit sticks of cigarette caught between grinning teeth. No big deal. It’s fine. She’s fine.

Her breath catches anyway. Goodness, she thinks. It’s not as if anyone’s _died_ up here to warrant such close adherence to security. Jun’s da— Mr. Kashihara is alive and well. She doesn’t live in that world anymore, and even if she wants to, there’s no way for her to go back. She’d have tried if she didn’t already know of the painful impossibility of such a wish. Tatsuya – _her_ Tatsuya, the boy she called her _chingyan_ with selfish disregard – had made sure of that.

He’s made his choice; it’s only fair that she gets to make hers. It’s only fair that she gets to settle for the next best thing, Lisa thinks, and that’s what gives her the resolve to push the door open and step inside.

Tatsuya is already waiting for her, surprisingly enough, as promised. Honestly, she half-expected to be stood up. He’s leaned against the dusty wall, running an absent thumb over the plain metal front of a lighter that she knows Jun couldn’t have given him, and although the gesture is far clumsier than the boy she knew a lifetime ago would’ve allowed, the illusion coalesces anyway. When he looks up from his hands, Lisa’s heart skips, and in the half-second it takes before he smiles at her the way his other self wouldn’t have, she forgets all about parallel universes and golden butterflies and the intrinsic pain of _necessary sacrifices_ , and blushes a girlish, furious pink.

“I’ve always liked you,” she tells him, hooking her finger around the strap of her bag, slung over her shoulder. Outside, the afternoon sky stretches, fading into a paler blue, and in the distance she can hear the faraway shuffling of students, exiting the gate. She doesn’t close her eyes, despite the urge, and looks up at Tatsuya instead, willing herself to see someone else inside that hard gaze. Her mouth eases into a smile, even as something sinks, bitter and heavy, in her stomach. She ignores it, shrugging one shoulder. “You’re handsome and I’m pretty, and I like you. It makes sense. We should go out.”

She seizes Tatsuya’s free hand for good measure when he doesn’t reply straightaway, a cheap trick she realizes she’d probably have tried on him before, in earnest, before she knew better than to force her will upon him; before the world as they knew it shattered and rebuilt itself at the price of the days they shared as children under that guileless, shimmering summer sky. She wonders if maybe she hasn’t learned anything after all.

The thought stings her enough that this time, she does cave in, closing her eyes. When she opens them she’s looking at their hands, her smaller palm overlaid his, and there’s a funny sort of irony in the realization this is the closest she’s ever gotten to Tatsuya without him flinching away or outright bolting at her advances. The closest she’ll ever get to him, even though it’s not _him_ , not her chingyan, and never will be.

She wonders if this is a compromise she’s willing to take.

She doesn’t want compromises. She’s already given up so much. But.

“Isn’t this a bit sudden,” Tatsuya admonishes, narrowing his eyes, gentle but firm, and nothing like all the times she remembers him frozen in place as she talked loudly about wedding bells and a picket fence house and how she’s not going to lose to anyone, ever, not even Maya, not even a boy –

“I’m in love with you,” Lisa says, abruptly, harder this time, bringing her gaze up to look at him, through him, helplessly seeking some sort of familiarity, some blur in the lines between the Tatsuya she knew and the boy standing in front of her she could never bring herself to call anything more familiar than _Suou-senpai_. “I’ve liked you for so long. Didn’t you know?” She exhales a shaky breath, “It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way. I just wanted you to hear it. I – wanted you to know, that’s all.”

There’s a moment of hesitation before Tatsuya retracts his hand to place it on her shoulder instead, all that impersonal warmth reserved for no doubt plenty of rejected admirers. The thought only makes her eyes and cheeks grow hotter, but she exhausted all her tears standing for hours by the shrine with Eikichi sobbing at her side, and finds that hollow resignation is all that’s left in the wake.

“Alright,” Tatsuya says, placating, and she meets his gaze as he nods. “It's all right,” he assures, smiling a little, and Lisa lets her eyes flutter closed again, trying her very best to pretend it’s the other him speaking when he takes a step forward and offers her his answer.

**Author's Note:**

> in case it wasn't clear the ending is s'possed to be a lead in to them getting 2gether sadly all the issues that could possibly come from that need another fanfic LMFAO srry


End file.
